#83 German Traditional Cooking

#83 German Traditional Cooking

My daughter is off in Germany right now for a couple of weeks. I can't wait for the food pictures to start coming in. She wanted to go where they serve the world's largest schnitzel but that's in a part of Germany she won't be visiting. You might think that Germany looks like one rather small country but apparently it is rigidly divided into regions that are completely different from each other. At least that's what my daughter's boyfriend tells me. I guess he should know, being German and all.

Anyway no matter what I ask him, like do you like pretzels, he replies, "Nein, this is not from my region." Or Black Forest cake, do you have this all the time. "Nein, this is from Bavaria, it is nowhere near where I am from". He even claims to have never had on a pair of lederhosen or to have danced der Guten Tag Hop-Clop. He's not even that fond of beer or red cabbage, so maybe that's just a fake accent, I'm beginning to wonder. His parents live two blocks from Beethoven's birth place but he hasn't visited that either. They make Gummy Bears in the same town but he hasn't toured the factory. Ja ja, he's going to be a busy fellow over the next two weeks!

So in honor of their German trip I'm posting pictures of the last time I made Spatzle. I still haven't gotten it right. Too thick and you end up with balls, too thin and you have long noodles or mush. This time it was balls but they were pretty good. Cookbook #83 is German Traditional Cooking by Tony Schmaeling. (Just got word, they had Currywurst with fries and mayo. That's like German fast food, I'll add a photo. She says it was good!)

#22 The German Cookbook

#22 The German Cookbook

We had German guests over the summer and I fed them a typical Kansas City meal of ribs and corn on the cob. For a thank you, they had their son find me a German cookbook. He did a great job, it's got all the classics in 525 pages. I needed a good cookbook since our favorite German restaurant, The Mill Gasthaus recently closed. Now I'll have to cook my own schnitzel. The Mill was such a great place, so warm and cosy, they even had autographed photos of Heino from when he had visited our city. It's so sad and how we all miss the wonderful food! See the photo of the Combination Plate, that included Rouladen, Wiener Schnitzel, Bratwurst with Spatzle and red cabbage. You never left there hungry!

This cookbook has recipes for all of these and also one for Pig Hocks. They are part of the pig's leg between the knee and the ankle, that's assuming pigs have knees. In an earlier post I mentioned how my husband's family were Germans from Russia. Grandpa Greb did very well with English but he did have an accent. One day he went to the butcher and asked the young woman behind the counter for Pig Hocks. She asked him to repeat it and she still looked puzzled. He said it again, "I want Pig Hocks, Pig Hocks!". Finally she yelled "We don't sell Peacocks!". That's a shame, they would have probably gone very nicely with a cold Warsteiner or Dortmunder or one of the other great German beers. So the cookbook for today is #22 The German Cookbook by Mimi Sheration.